The Girl Who Disappeared

By James Lingard

The Girl Who Disappeared is a fact based historical romance with a strong female lead set in Britain in the 1930s and during WW2 when men ruled and women were expected to obey.
Emily falls passionately in love with working class Walter despite fierce opposition from her father and resolves to elope. Her actions will see her struggle to survive the devastation brought about by the war, as she and her four year old son are thrown into the midst of danger and death. Their air raid shelter is destroyed by a direct hit.
When Walter volunteers for the army, Emily and her son are evacuated to a rat infested cottage in a farming community near Hebden Bridge. Walter becomes an officer who demands to be obeyed. Emily worries she may have a rival for his affections.How can she restore their loving relationship?
The Girl Who Disappeared is a moving love story about one woman’s enduring resilience, a story full of quiet humour and surprising twists and turns.
'Wow! What a good book' (Goodreads reviewer)
'James brought their lives to life' (Library Thing reviewer)
‘A beautiful historical blend of fact and fiction. This book was an emotional read for me. 5stars.' (Readers Favorite)s

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Lingard
• Release date: Jul 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005722869

James Lingard

This is the first novel by James Lingard, who lives in Kent, UK.

Book preview

The Girl Who Disappeared

A fact based historical novel

By James Lingard

Smashbooks Edition

Copyright © 2021 James Lingard

This book is also available as an audio book or in print at most online retailers.

The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form.

What Others are saying about The Girl Who Disappeared

'Wow! What a good book' (Goodreads reviewer)

'James brought their lives to life' (Library Thing reviewer)

‘A beautiful historical blend of fact and fiction. This book was an emotional read for me. 5stars.' (Readers Favorite)

'Engaging, Realistic Historical Fiction' (E.B. Roshan)

'Very enjoyable' (Grace J Reviewerlady's review in Goodreads)

'very well-defined, and at times frightening view of life in Britain during World War II' (Martin Dolan)

'very easy rating of 5 stars' (Tony Parsons Washburn; MSW Amazon reviewer)

'What a wonderful novel! The Girl Who Disappeared is everything I love!' (Jenna Soliani It's a Military Life)

'It’s very interesting and is intense taking me longer to read but it’s so overwhelming also empowering you wrote this with such empathy.' (Lady Kendall Jagger)

'I enjoyed this book. It was a fast read. I was transported back in time.' (Reviewed by Cherylk, a Library Thing customer)

Table of Contents

Chapter1-Confrontations

Chapter2-Trouble

Chapter 3-Eloping

Chapter 4-Honeymoon

Chapter 5-America

Chapter 6-London

Chapter 7-TheStormBreaks

Chapter 8-DangerStrikes

Chapter 9-BesidetheSea

Chapter 10-Evacuation

Chapter 11-FarmLife

Chapter 12-WhoDares

Chapter 13-AChangingWorld

Chapter 14-Manchester

Chapter 15-Separation

Chapter 16-PeaceatLast

Chapter 17-DulwichCollege

Chapter 18-Keighley

Chapter 19-Chislehurst

Chapter 20-ASecondHoneymoon

Epilogue: Britain Pre and Post the Second World War

About the Author

Blurb

Chapter 1 Confrontation

September 1933 Halifax Yorkshire

When the Norton motorbike skidded to a halt on the wet cobbles, Emily, an attractive brunette, sat glued to her seat behind the driver and glared at the detached millstone house outside which they were parked. She felt fearful, dreading the consequences of confronting her father with a decision she knew he would never approve.

‘Are you absolutely sure we need to do this?’ She spat out the words slowly in the driver’s ear. ‘I’ve lived in that house all my life, yet I’m no longer sure it is still my family. We used to be happy together but over the last few months father has been quite impossible.’

Ever since her teenage years, she had resented the tight control which her parents tried to exercise over her, stifling her along with her spoiled younger sister, Mary. Both had been forbidden to have any boyfriends whose suitability had not been vetted by her father and Emily was determined to wait no longer before escaping from such shackles.

She loved Walter dearly – the way he looked at her and treated her as if no other woman existed, his wicked sense of humour and his intelligence and ambition. ‘You know what we agreed’, Walter told her as he climbed off his bike. ‘Come on, let’s get it over with; no point in sitting out here in a thunderstorm.’

They gave one another a big hug, then taking a deep breath to calm her nerves and wiping the raindrops off her face with the back of her hand, Emily reached out and gripped Walter’s hand; he squeezed her hand firmly in response. They stood together in silence for a few moments, struggling to pluck up their courage, neither of them quite ready to enter the house. The weather ended their hesitation with a flash of sheet lightening followed by an ear-shattering clap of thunder.

Under dark skies and increasingly heavy rain, Emily glanced at the earnest young man standing beside her, scrabbled in her handbag for the front door key and quickly ushered him into her childhood home.Still holding hands, they stood dripping on the tiled floor and Emily, biting her lip, stared at the closed lounge door. She could hear the familiar mumble of her father’s voice reading aloud from the Bible. Behind that door, she knew he would be sitting bolt upright in his chair still wearing his best black suit kept for use when he delivered sermons as a lay preacher at the local church. The words of the Bible penetrated through the door and caused her to hesitate.

She could picture her mother and young sister, sitting quietly on the dark brown leather settee, hands folded on their laps, waiting with quiet patience for him to finish. A year ago, she would have been sitting there with them.

She felt her hand getting clammy in Walter’s grip and, when she glanced at him, noticed that he too looked paler than usual. It gave her some comfort to know that he felt just as nervous as she did. She gave his hand one last squeeze before dropping it, turning the door handle of the lounge with trembling fingers and pushing the door wide open.

Blushing with embarrassment, she blurted out: ‘This is Walter Lingard, my fiancé. We are getting married on my twenty first birthday.’ That bore little relation to the script which the young couple had spent all day rehearsing, but the pressure of the moment became too great for her to exercise self-control.

Her father put down his Bible and glared at them. ‘How dare you burst into the room and interrupt me when I’m reading from the Bible. Now, young lady, would you repeat slowly what you just said?’

Walter tried to intervene, ‘Please Sir . . .’ he began, but a withering glare from the father abruptly silenced him: ‘You, young man, get out of my house NOW.’

Emily knew her father well enough to know he would never change his mind and pleaded with Walter: ‘Please go before he throws you out. Your presence only makes matters worse; I love you, you know that,’ she sobbed, trying unsuccessfully to hold back her tears. She took his arm and led him quickly to the front door.

As he stepped out onto the drive into the thunderstorm still raging all around, he tenderly cupped her face in his hands, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. ‘Please call me as soon as you can. I need to know that you are safe.’

Emily clasped her arms around the love of her life and kissed him hard on the lips. Then, closing the front door firmly behind her, she wiped her tears away, took a deep breath, tossed her head defiantly, straightened her red polka dot dress and walked back into the lounge with a heavy heart to face her father.

‘If you marry that man, you leave this house for good – never to return. NEVER. Do you understand me?’ he boomed.

Emily looked at his reddish purple face and knew that he meant every word. How often had she heard him say ‘Honour your father and your mother’?

‘Look at me when I’m speaking to you. Are you going to obey me?’ His words seemed to weave themselves with a slow hiss around his cane as he picked it up from its resting place against the highly polished mahogany sideboard. Emily had rarely seen her father quite so angry; he lost his temper on occasion but usually kept his self-control. Now he seemed beside himself; she could smell the whisky on his breath.

Is the cane merely a threat or does he really intend to use it on me, she thought, remembering all too vividly that as a child he used to bend her over the back of the settee and smack her bottom until she cried. People used to say: ‘Spare the rod; spoil the child’. But now I’m a fully grown woman; he won’t dare, will he?

Pleading for support, she glanced at her mother, an overweight matronly lady in her fifties who had been subjected to the control of her husband all her married life, sitting wringing her hands together on the couch beside Mary. Emily realised what kept her mother frozen in her seat and vowed that she would never allow herself to become so submissive.

Her mother whispered to her in a low voice, ‘Take care not to make your father angry or you’ll be in real trouble and I won’t be able to stop him. You really shouldn’t disturb our Sunday evenings like that; you should be ashamed of yourself.’

Mary, who had remained completely silent throughout the angry exchanges, now suddenly let out a sob which she tried unsuccessfully to stifle. Fearing her husband’s rage would be turned on her younger daughter, the mother instantly grabbed the tearful girl and ordered her to bed even though the grandfather clock in the hall had not yet struck nine o’clock. Mary stumbled out of the room, sobbing freely as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

Now just the three of them remained in the room. Emily took a moment to survey the scene – her mother on the couch, eyes downcast, shoulders slumped; and her father pacing up and down the dark green carpet square tapping the cane against the palm of his left hand.

How dare he bully her like that and her mother should surely at least make some attempt to stop him. She grimaced at the smell of furniture polish; the faded yellowy brown wallpaper which passed itself off as gold but above all at the brown leather settee where her father used to beat her as a child.

She felt herself begin to tremble, but from anger not fear. At twenty years old she felt to be emancipated and free, not a child to be dictated to by a father she no longer respected. Who did he think he was? Charlie Chaplin. Did he seriously expect her to run upstairs in floods of tears and bend to his will?

Surely, now he must see her as a mature adult and not as just a child whom he could punish with impunity. She looked her father full in the face and, as she glared at him with the full power of her rage, noticed his eyes flicker momentarily.

Now just the three of them remained in the room. Emily took a moment to survey the scene – her mother on the couch, eyes downcast, shoulders slumped; and her father pacing up and down the dark green carpet square tapping the cane against the palm of his left hand.

How dare he bully her like that and her mother should surely at least make some attempt to stop him. She grimaced at the smell of furniture polish; the faded yellowy brown wallpaper which passed itself off as gold but above all at the brown leather settee where her father used to beat her as a child.

She felt herself begin to tremble, but from anger not fear. At twenty years old she felt to be emancipated and free, not a child to be dictated to by a father she no longer respected. Who did he think he was? Charlie Chaplin. Did he seriously expect her to run upstairs in floods of tears and bend to his will?

Surely, now he must see her as a mature adult and not as just a child whom he could punish with impunity. She looked her father full in the face and, as she glared at him with the full power of her rage, noticed his eyes flicker momentarily.

‘Go to your room and stay there until you come to your senses,’ he finally roared, slapping the cane against his leg.

Emily turned on her heel and marched smartly out of the room, head held high, and up the stairs to her bedroom next to Mary’s room, slamming the door in a vain attempt to shut out the sound of her father ranting about herself and Walter.

Even so his voice penetrated into her eyrie: ‘We can’t let her marry that street urchin. He has no money, no prospects and spends his time roaring about the place on that motorbike, disturbing all our neighbours. He’s the boy I told you about who used to shoot at me with a pea shooter when I delivered groceries to the Co-op in Hebden Bridge and his father is a trade union leader always getting himself into the newspapers.’

Her father felt so strongly about Walter that he might well try to prevent her marriage; at any moment he might burst into her bedroom cane in hand. What would she do if he did?

She flung herself back onto the soft pillows of her bed and stared at the ceiling, reflecting bitterly on the contrast between the way Walter’s parents welcomed the news of her engagement and her own parents’ reaction to it. ‘His father after all is a local celebrity in his own right,’ she muttered to herself.

She remembered how proud Walter had been when he told her: ‘Apart from my dad’s union activities, he puts himself about in the local community, conducting the male voice choir, singing solos in various Methodist chapels and organising celebrities like Gracie Fields to come to local concerts. He is himself a well-known tenor soloist who has won many competitions - even being accorded the honour of singing solo before the King at the Royal Albert Hall. London amazes him, as he says, how does such a city survive with so few mills and so little industry?’

***

Emily’s mood changed as she recalled the moment when Walter had proposed to her. It happened one glorious summer day in early June. The weather could not have been more perfect; windless, warm and a cloudless sky, the blue veiled with a light haze, as it sometimes is in early summer. Even the unforgiving granite rocks scattered around seemed somehow to mellow into the landscape.

Her eyes had filled with tears as she sat in their special place near Hardcastle Crags and watched Walter kneel before her, his voice trembling as he said the words she had been longing to hear for weeks: ‘Will you marry me?’ Without hesitation, she had responded with an emotional, ‘yes!’ and thrown her arms around him before smothering him with kisses.

She had danced all the way back to the motorbike holding his hand and humming quietly to herself: ’Sally, Sally in Our Alley’. She pushed all thoughts of her parents’ likely disapproval out of her mind, nothing would stop her from getting married to the love of her life.

The very day that Walter proposed to her, they had stopped by his family’s house in Hebden Bridge, a small mill town thriving with clothing factories and a dye works which occasionally dyed the river red or blue, to break the good news. His parents’ reaction could not have been warmer; they even promised to help make the arrangements for the wedding to take place in their local church.

Emily liked Walter’s house – not as grand as her own, but it always seemed friendly and bustling. She liked the informality of friends or relatives entering through the unlocked back door leading into the kitchen. Whenever she visited, the constant flow of friends and neighbours calling in unannounced for a cup of tea and a chat always cheered her.

Walter’s father, James, had explained to her: ‘All the mill towns enjoy a wakes (holiday) week – always the same week but different weeks for different towns so that resorts like Blackpool can cope with the influx. I always take all our family to St Anne’s-on-sea year after year, except for my daughter, Annie, who regularly goes to Switzerland with a party of friends. We go next month; would you like to come with us?’ She had politely declined but would always cherish the invitation.

***

The sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs shattered her daydreaming. Father! She sat bolt upright on her bed and clasped her hands together – dreading what might happen next. Her father flung open the bedroom door and stood over her, with the cane held tightly in his right hand.

‘Have you come to your senses yet, daughter?’ he growled in a calm menacing voice, tapping the cane in his hand against his leg. For a moment, the pink flowers on the wall behind him blurred into a pink fog.

‘Please,’ she gasped in alarm. ‘I want to respect you, I am your daughter. I need time to sort myself out.’

He snorted. ‘Take care you do as I say or you’ll regret it. There will be no wedding to that young man you brought home. I’ve discussed the matter with your mother and we do know one or two young men who would make a suitable husband. I’ll talk to their parents and arrange for them to come to dinner and meet you.’

‘Who are they?’ gasped Emily in alarm.

‘You’ll find out in good time when I’m ready,’ her father barked, with which he left slamming the door behind him.

Emily sat back on her bed and allowed herself a little smile, relieved that no violence had been inflicted on her person. ‘We will see about that,’ she thought.

‘No matter what my parents do, I’m going to marry Walter on my twenty-first birthday and nothing they do will stop me. By law, I’ll then be free to marry whomsoever I please without their consent.’

She banged her fists against the pillow and a tear rolled down her cheek; it should never have come to this. ‘Why can’t my father see Walter’s qualities and his ambitions to succeed and see the world? My clever Jimmy has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard University in America and wants to take me with him.’

She knew that her father could not stand Walter’s father who seemed to court